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Houston In The 1890s


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  • 1 month later...

Wow - that map is AWESOME! I've spent hours looking at it. It's really interesting to compare that map to a current day view (Use Google Earth and you can rotate the map to the exact same orientation).

I was wondering - how many buildings from 1891 still exist today? I know the Annunciation Church is one (Texas and Crawford). ...any others?

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  • 1 year later...

I was wondering if anyone had pics or stories of teh 1895 Blizzard in Houston and surrounding areas? I can only imagin that it would be hard on people not use to snow and not able to forecast such a thing to get hit with 20 inches out of no where. Reading one recount from over in Orange, I know that one of the historians over there have some pictures of the Orange Courthouse during the "storm". I was wondering what info and pics others had???

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I was wondering if anyone had pics or stories of teh 1895 Blizzard in Houston and surrounding areas? I can only imagin that it would be hard on people not use to snow and not able to forecast such a thing to get hit with 20 inches out of no where. Reading one recount from over in Orange, I know that one of the historians over there have some pictures of the Orange Courthouse during the "storm". I was wondering what info and pics others had???

Haven't found any pics yet, but here's an article about it. http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/ice.htm

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Doing a search, I see lots written about it, but not a lot of pictures. I saw one picture

taken in New Orleans. Was pretty deep.

I think the 73 snow was the best in recent memory..

I was in high school at that time. Got fairly deep for Houston,

and snowed twice pretty heavy if I remember right

with a week or so apart.

Some short video..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/73snow-2.wmv

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If someone has access to the Galveston Daily News archive, there are photos of the port of Galveston in the 1895 snow in the December 5, 1909 issue of the paper's magazine supplement. There is also a photo of Ball High School in the 1895 snow in the February 14, 1945 edition of the News. And a photo of the Beach Hotel in the 1895 snow, and a photo of a Galveston residence in the 1895 snow, in the September 19, 1968 edition. (The copies I've seen of these photos are very grainy, or I'd post them.)

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I'm really excited about an 1890 map of Houston that was added to the Library of Congress' online map collection since I last checked it. It's about the same size and has about the same level of detail as the online 1913 map. I've made a large jpg copy of the 1890 map and added it to my list of old Houston maps I've found online - it's listed as "1890 - Houston Street Map".

I haven't started studying the map yet, but I could tell in putting together the jpg that having a map this old and this large/detailed available online (thanks Library of Congress!) is a pretty big deal (at least to me - but I'm sure to a few others of you as well).

Note that in the bottom right corner of the map, it states "FACTS COMPILED TO JULY 1st, 1890" and that, somewhere along the way, someone wrote a "2" over the "0". That may be the reason that the Library of Congress has listed the date as "1890?".

Anyhow, the 1913 map has generated so much discussion in various threads - and I always like reading notes about details I missed - that I thought it might be good to have a thread for the 1890 map.

Update - some quick observations:

What is now Washington Cemetery is labeled "Deutsche Gesellschaft" (the cemetery was started by the Deutsche Gesellschaft von Houston, a group of German businessmen, and renamed Washington Cemetery in 1918 because of anti-German sentiment in the WWI time period) - on the 1913 map, it's labeled "German Cemetery".

Frostown looks to be relatively new - there aren't any street names listed - and there is a large building across the bayou, next to the Crystal Ice Factory, labeled "Bayou City Press" - I don't think I've heard of it before. [The Bayou City Press was apparently for cotton pressing, as was the "Peoples' Compress".]

Old City Cemetery is on there, and already called Old City Cemetery.

There's a "Peoples' Compress" and a "Citizens Electric Light" shown.

The water works (in the approximate location of where the aquarium annex is now) are labeled "Water Works Artesian Wells" - reminding me of this article.

A street in the Old Sixth Ward that is labeled as "Moore" in the 1913 map is labeled here as "Nicarauga".

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very cool. Apparently, I live right on top of what used to be the Texas & Western RR line. It doesnt appear on the 1913 map and I had never seen it before.

I remember reading something somewhere about a railroad that used to go through part of what is now Montrose - I think it had something to do with a road that was called "Mound Street" and is now part of W. Alabama. I can't find it, but will keep looking. It was on a site where people were discussing Houston railroad history, I think.

Update: Very frustrating - I can't find the original source. All I have are my notes: "Alabama Street through Montrose (in which it is designated W. Alabama Street) very likely traces the route of a narrow-gauge railroad that once ran from Houston to Sugarland. Once it became a road, it was known for a short time in the early 1900's as Mound Avenue or Ross Avenue (depending on the map) before being renamed as a western extension of Alabama Street." I know the proposal to change Mound/Ross to West Alabama was made in 1910. Don't know if that's even the railroad you meant, but it reminded me of the old railroad through Montrose.

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Great find - there is a little piece of realigned Artesian Place left by the water works here...in the 1890 map it's the street to the north of the soap works (Menger Soap Co. at one point) but today it is the street to the west of the stove works (Cushman St. back then and at one point home of Cushman's Foundry).

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I hadn't heard of Wright's Flower Garden, either, which is shown bordered by Glenwood Cemetery. There are references to it in old newspapers between 1887 and 1912, but nothing that really gives any description. The last reference I found to it is in January 1912. The newspaper says that the city had posted earnest money on the property, with the intention of building a new Sixth Ward School there (for upper grades, with the Dow School building at Washington and Ash being retained for lower grades). But Sixth Ward residents apparently opposed the plan, and were circulating petitions to stop it - the article doesn't say why. From the 1913 map, it looks like this parcel of property ultimately just became an extension of the Sixth Ward.

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I remember reading something somewhere about a railroad that used to go through part of what is now Montrose - I think it had something to do with a road that was called "Mound Street" and is now part of W. Alabama. I can't find it, but will keep looking. It was on a site where people were discussing Houston railroad history, I think.
The only RR I recall going into Montrose is the one paralleling the SW Fwy. You can see it on the
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I'm confused about Frostown as it pre-dated Houston itself. So why no street names? :huh:

You know, I shouldn't have said it looked new because I knew Frostown was about as old as Houston (you may know more than I do if you know it predates Houston)... it just looked new to me on the map because there weren't street names. But, having looked more, there are several other places on the map where street names are missing. Maybe the real estate agent (also alderman for a few years) who made the map wasn't as concerned about marking areas of town where he was unlikely to be making sales?

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